Blue-Cloud addresses the IA ‘The Future of Seas and Oceans Flagship Initiative’ (BG-07-2019-2020) for the following topic: [A] 2019 - Blue Cloud services. The project implements a practical approach to address the potential of cloud based open science to achieve a set of services identifying also longer term challenges to build and demonstrate the Pilot Blue Cloud as a thematic EOSC cloud to support research to better understand & manage the many aspects of ocean sustainability, through a set of five pilot Blue-Cloud demonstrators. It seeks to capitalise on what exists already and to develop and deploy, through a pragmatic workplan, the pilot Blue Cloud as a cyber platform bringing together and providing access to: 1) multidisciplinary data from observations and models, 2) analytical tools, & 3) computing facilities essential for key blue science use cases. Outputs include: a Blue Cloud Framework, Data Discovery & Access Service (approx. 400 users) & VRE (approx. 1,000 users) from 25 countries, Blue Cloud Service Catalogue including 50+ services deployed through 5 compelling pilot demonstrators, A Blue Cloud 2030 implementation Policy Roadmap, Whitepaper on outcomes of the Food/Blue-Cloud Pilots to support the implementation of thematic EOSC, 4 focused Roadmap events & Workshops, 1 hackathon, 10 webinars, 1 Final results conference, engaged community with all stakeholder groups represented. Led by a consortium bringing together leading European marine data management infrastructures, EOSC horizontal e-infrastructures, and excellent marine researchers. Coordinated by a neutral ICT intensive SME with over 15 years’ experience, technically coordinated by a community leading marine & ocean data specialist, and supported by 17 experienced partners, from research, academia & industry, with strategic and practical involvement in design and delivery of blue community needs. An influential External Stakeholders Experts Board & an Expert Foresight Group support the project.

The EcoScope project will develop an interoperable platform and a robust decision-making toolbox, available through a single public portal, to promote an efficient, ecosystem-based fisheries management. It will be guided by policy makers and scientific advisory bodies, and address ecosystem degradation and the anthropogenic impact that are causing fisheries to be unsustainably exploited across European Seas. The EcoScope Platform will organise and homogenise climatic, oceanographic, biogeochemical, biological and fisheries datasets for European Seas to a common standard type and format that will be available through interactive mapping layers. The EcoScope Toolbox, a scoring system based on assessments of all ecosystem components, ecosystem and economic models, will operate as a decision-support tool for examining fisheries management and marine policy scenarios and spatial planning simulations. Groups of end-users and stakeholders will be involved in the design, development and operation of both the platform and the toolbox. Novel assessment methods for data-poor fisheries, including non-commercial species, as well as for biodiversity and the conservation status of protected megafauna, will be used to assess the status of all ecosystem components across European Seas and test new technologies for evaluating the environmental, anthropogenic and climatic impact on ecosystems and fisheries. A series of sophisticated capacity building tools (online courses, webinars and games) will be available to stakeholders through the EcoScope Academy. The EcoScope project will provide an effective toolbox to decision makers and end-users that will be adaptive to their capacity, needs and data availability. The toolbox will incorporate methods for dealing with uncertainty; thus, it will promote efficient, holistic, sustainable, ecosystem-based fisheries management that will aid towards restoring fisheries sustainability and ensuring balance between food security and healthy seas.

Supply chain visibility supported by easy access to, and exchange and use of relevant and abundant logistics-related information is an important prerequisite for the deployment of pan-European logistics solutions that are needed to increase efficiency and productivity, and to reduce environmental impact. Although there is a proliferative development of logistics-related data stores, information channels, information management systems and data mining facilities, with both international and intermodal focus, this multitude of solutions exhibits a high degree of fragmentation, due to differences in user requirements, data models, system specification and business models. This legacy situation severely hampers the optimal use of logistics-related information. To overcome this fragmentation and lack of connectivity of ICT-based information systems for logistics decision making, AEOLIX will establish a cloud-based collaborative logistics ecosystem for configuring and managing (logistics-related) information pipelines. This digital business ecosystem will create visibility across the supply chain, enabling more sustainable and efficient transport of goods cross Europe. An essential element of the approach is to ensure that for logistics actors connecting to and using the ecosystem in undemanding and has a low level of complexity. We envision the ecosystem enabling the integration of supply-chain-related transport business processes through logistics software solutions for cloud-based connectivity and interaction, in order to support more efficient collaboration in the logistics supply chain than exists today. By enabling low-complexity and low cost connectivity of local ICT platforms and systems and thereby scalable, trusted and secure exchange of information, AEOLIX will improve the overall competitiveness of goods transport in the supply chain, while simultaneously targeting sustainability from environmental, economic and social perspectives.

Mesopelagic Southern Ocean Prey and Predators The underlying concept of MESOPP is the creation of a collaborative network and associated e-infrastructure (marine ecosystem information system) between European and Australian research teams/institutes sharing similar interests in the Southern Ocean and Antarctica, its marine ecosystem functioning and the rapid changes occurring with the climate warming and the exploitation of marine resources. While MESOPP will focus on the enhancement of collaborations by eliminating various obstacles in establishing a common methodology and a connected network of databases of acoustic data for the estimation of micronekton biomass and validation of models, it will also contribute to a better predictive understanding of the SO based on furthering the knowledge base on key functional groups of micronekton and processes which determine ecosystem dynamics from physics to large oceanic predators. This first project and associated implementation (science network and specification of an infrastructure) should constitute the nucleus of a larger international programme of acoustic monitoring and micronekton modelling to be integrated in the general framework of ocean observation following a roadmap that will be prepared during the project.